


Untitled

by epiphanaea (Epiphanaea)



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Background Emil/Lalli, Canon-compliant through chapter 18, F/M, Sigrun fails at flirting, diverges from canon thereafter because your author is impatient, this is not how you relationship, though future bits of canon will be salvaged where possible, unless of course it works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-02-19 05:13:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13116777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphanaea/pseuds/epiphanaea
Summary: Mikkel's perspective on Sigrun being Sigrun.  Started as a series of shippy missing scenes, has since diverged from canon.





	1. Chapter 1

 

Mikkel is outside hanging the wash, enjoying a rare moment of solitude, when Sigrun emerges from the tank. It's not far past dawn, with the sunrise coming as late as it does this deep into the winter, and only just above freezing. Sigrun's breath fogs the air; the clothes Mikkel has hung are steaming, despite the tepid wash-water. His hands are caught at that excruciating point between intolerable cold and numbness.

Sigrun stretches, back arched, fingers interwoven, arms high over her head. 

In the early light she is particularly striking, even moreso than she always is; all long lines and sharp shadows. Though he knows it to be a foolish thought, he finds himself wondering if there were people like her before, or whether she is the product of rapid evolution, nature grasping at equilibrium. Could there be a Sigrun, in a world that lacked monsters for her to slay? 

“Good morning,” Mikkel greets her, quietly – as close to the city as they are, it's best to speak softly.

Sigrun grimaces and lets her arms drop, then gives one good shiver before wrapping them around herself, hands tucked into elbows. “My uterus is trying to kill me,” she says.

He pauses momentarily in the act of clipping a sock to the line. 

Well. 

Yes, 'striking' is a good word for Sigrun; so is 'blunt'. 

“I see,” Mikkel responds; he gives the sock another good wringing – who knows how long the sun will stay out, best to give it as little work to do as possible – and hangs it. “Do you require a painkiller?” 

“Nah, save that stuff for if we need to start chopping limbs,” she says, and slouches back against the tank. 

“Very well.” He hangs the other sock, and is aware of being scrutinized. 

“C'mon, you're our medic, don't tell me you're squeamish about that stuff.”

“Not at all. Please feel free to add your cloths to the wash.” 

“Great. Wasn't sure if you'd be okay with that. I mean, you're washing out troll guts on the regular, but men get weird.”

He decides it's probably best not to mention that in his experience, both sexes can be touchy on the subject of menstruation – Tuuri had insisted on doing her own washing for a handful of days, rather furtively, twice now. It was entirely unnecessary, but he left her to it. He'd assumed – as much as he'd thought of it at all – that Sigrun was doing something similar, only being more effectively discreet. Apparently her menses are simply not regular – not entirely surprising, given her athleticism. 

“Glad you're not going to be weird.” 

“I aim to please.” 

She snorts. 

A moment later, she says, “You know what really helps? A good fuck.” 

Mikkel feels he cannot be blamed in the slightest for dropping a pair of Emil's long underwear into the slush at his feet. 

“Best thing ever for cramps, gods' honest truth.” 

He retrieves the dropped article of clothing, gives it a little shake, inspects it – well, Emil will no doubt be horrified at the slight speckling of mud it now bears. Mikkel brushes it off with one mostly-numb hand, succeeds only in smearing the mud further, and clips it to the line. 

“I'm not asking or anything. Just saying.” 

“I would never have thought otherwise.” He supposes the clarification is necessary; she is technically his superior officer, after all. Still, it honestly hadn't occurred to him that she might be asking, let alone demanding, and not because she isn't the type of officer to take advantage. She was just . . . being Sigrun. 

But of course Sigrun would have sex, sometimes. Obviously. She wouldn't lack for willing partners. 

Partners willing to aid her in relieving menstrual cramps by way of orgasm. 

He's seen her gore-splattered after a fight; the blood was – there is that word again. Striking. Against her pale skin. 

These are not useful thoughts to be having.

“You almost done with that? Going to start breakfast soon? I'm so hungry I'm actually looking forward to your sludge.” 

Really not useful thoughts at all.

***

They're tenacious, though, thoughts of that nature. 

So when, a few days later, Sigrun says, “Hey, I didn't hurt your feelings or something, did I?” he knows exactly what she's referring to, despite it being a complete non sequitor. He's scrubbing dishes and she's cleaning her rifle. A moment ago she was telling another of her hunting stories.

He can see those stories playing out quite vividly in his mind, despite her limited and sometimes questionable vocabulary; her enthusiasm in the telling carries the tale all on its own. It's easy to picture her in her glory, blood-drenched and fierce. It's harder to acknowledge her as she is in front of him now, hands restless and shoulders tense and impatient, ready to be unconcerned no matter how he answers. 

Sigrun as a person is . . . difficult. 

“How so?” he asks; admitting comprehension seems unwise. 

Feigning ignorance proves futile. “I wasn't saying I _wouldn't_ have sex with you,” Sigrun says, in a completely normal conversational tone and volume. Thank any gods who might be listening, the only one of the others within hearing is Lalli, who seems to be attempting to glare the horizon into submission. 

“If you were offering, hey, that'd be awesome – bit of a challenge to find a time and a place, but I love a challenge. I just didn't want you to think I expected it. Like it was your duty or something, to help me out. Because obviously it's not, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be into it, if you were.” 

There is so much crammed in between those clipped sentences, it's terrifying.

What most of it amounts to: for some unfathomable reason, she's feeling rejected that he turned down the sex she didn't actually offer. Still hasn't actually offered. 

It occurs to him, perhaps very belatedly, that much of what he'd taken for peace-making from her had very likely been intended as flirting.

“I was unoffended,” he says, choosing his words very carefully; one of them has to. “But as you say, I don't know when there would be the time, or the privacy.” 

“I know, right?” She sighs. “But anyway - we're good?”

“We are,” he affirms.

“Great. Hey, did I tell you about the time -”

***

With that, Sigrun seems to consider the matter concluded, which ought to conclude it for Mikkel too, seeing as he never intended to broach the subject in the first place. 

And yet. 

There is a likely-inevitable shift in his perception of her, though not exactly in sexual terms. A dead man would have noticed she was attractive long before then; that's nothing new. And, in retrospect, she's been treating him differently for a while now. 

Their interactions have somehow turned into one long conversation, broken at regular intervals when she and Emil go out in search of books, but picked back up again the moment she's back in conversational distance. Sigrun is completely unabashed in just planting herself next to him, whatever he's doing, presuming her own welcome and chattering away. 

She is . . increasingly correct in that assumption. It's bemusing at first, and then comfortable, and while he does still appreciate the hours of quiet when she's gone, he begins to look forward to her return equally as much. 

She asks him about himself here and there, and he finds himself answering more often and more honestly than he intends.

(“They fired you anyway?” “Yes.” “Well, they're stupid.” “I did act rather far outside the scope of my assigned duties, and against orders.” “Well, yeah, but they were stupid orders.”) 

She is as indomitable in her affection as she is in everything else. It's disproportionately gratifying, all the moreso because it's clearly not calculated, not a seduction. 

(“ . . . to be honest, I'd have fired you for that too. And possibly kicked the shit out of you. I mean, he sounds like an ass and that was hysterical, but -” “But I did significantly undermine his authority.” “Yeah. Awesome story, though. You don't lack nerve.”)

And while there has been no further discussion of anything sexual, he can't say they remain entirely professional, and the pushing of that boundary is mostly his doing. 

She stands and grimaces, after they've all finished dinner; rotates her neck, rolls her shoulders, tries to contort into a position that will let her dig her knuckles into her own back. She's using her good arm only, but he suspects that's because he's watching.

He rises from his own chair, lifting a hand toward her. “If I may?”

“Oh, that'd be great.” She turns her back to him, drops her arm to her side and lets her head fall forward. “And don't be wimpy about it.”

“Perish the thought.” He spreads his hands over her shoulders, just letting the material of her jacket warm for a moment, before digging his thumbs in to either side of her spine. 

She groans; he feels out the muscles of her upper back was well as he can through the heavy material until he finds a spot that makes her whole shoulder twitch. “There?”

“You are the _awesomest,_ ” she says, which he takes to mean yes, and presses in with the heel of his hand. 

“Can I sit down? I think this is going to be worth sitting down for.” 

The frank delight in her voice warms him like a slow drink of strong liquor. “However you would be most comfortable.”

“Inside, I want out of this coat.” 

Mikkel very deliberately declines to notice three pairs of eyes watching them with interest as she catches his hand and drags him along. 

It occurs to him, as she pulls him into the tank, that this might count as privacy – brief, uncertain privacy, but he thinks he could count on Tuuri to respect a closed door. Likely Emil too, though his confidence is a little thinner there. Lalli is already out for the night, and Reynir – well, Tuuri can handle Reynir.

Sigrun's coat goes flying past his head toward the bunk room; he divests himself of his own more slowly, and sets each coat on their respective bunks before following her into the office.

She's turned the chairs around to face one another in the middle of the small room. She straddles one, and reaches back to slap the seat of the other. “Here, you get comfortable too.” Then she crosses her arms over the back of the chair and rests her head. When his hands settle back on her shoulders, she hums contentedly. 

No making more salacious use of the time, then. 

But as he works his way down to the small of her back, she murmurs into her elbow, “That's it, I'm keeping you.”

He must react in some way she can feel – perhaps his hands pause, though he doesn't mean them to – because she snorts, and her left arm flails backwards until it finds his knee and pats it. 

They haven't discussed what will happen once the mission ends, probably because there's little to discuss – she will go back to her life, he will go back to his, they will promise to write and then not. She will become a patch of bright color in his memory. One barely-mutual acknowledgment of lust and a great deal of casual conversation does not a relationship make. 

But if she's serious - 

He wouldn't mind being kept. 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Is that so adorable you could puke or what?” 

Mikkel glances in the direction Sigrun's tilted her head; there on a large rock sit Emil and Lalli, some distance away, their backs to one another. Lalli, he is pleased to note, appears to actually be eating the soup Emil brought him. Tuuri and Reynir have taken their meal inside, leaving himself and Sigrun relatively alone.

“They better get themselves sorted before summer, traveling in summer is the worst,” Sigrun says. 

“Traveling?”

“You think I'd miss my right-hand warrior's wedding?”

“They're nineteen,” Mikkel points out mildly. And presently unable to eat a meal facing one another – though not for lack of trying on Emil's part. 

“And in their lines of work, what're the odds on both of them seeing thirty? If they're smart, they'll realize when you find something good, you don't waste it.” 

She says it so casually, it's hard not to wince. She's right, of course, and he can't fault her for her candor. Still, he'd prefer not to think on those clumsily infatuated children as corpses in waiting. 

“Gods, though, can you picture Emil with a baby? Kid'll be three before its feet touch dirt.”

“And do you have a surrogate picked out for them?” Mikkel inquires, and swallows another spoonful of soup. 

“Hey, they're both immune and healthy, and Twig's a mage. You've got good genes like that, you've got a responsibility to keep them going, and the sooner the better, before something takes you out.” 

He glances at her, at that, a brow raised. She is near his own age and, to his knowledge, has no children. 

“I donated,” she says, shrugging. “Before my first hunt. I'd still like to pop out one or two of my own, but just in case.” 

“You must have been quite young.”

“Fifteen,” she says, like that's nothing. “They freeze 'em until you're . . eighteen or twenty-one or something. Until you've demonstrated that you're quality material.”

He tries to imagine a fifteen-year-old Sigrun, sufficiently cognizant of both her own mortality and the precarious state of the human race to want to donate eggs. It shifts his mental image of her again, ever so slightly. 

Would it have been a decision she reached on her own, or something encouraged by her parents, preached to her as a duty? 

“You?”

“I'm a twin,” he tells her. “And one of seven in all. My siblings have produced thirteen offspring thus far. I believe the Madsen genetic heritage is secure.”

“Damn, that is a pile of rugrats. Consider me impressed; my parents decided one of me was enough. Twin, huh? Identical?”

“As children, yes.”

“What's his name?”

“Michael.”

“ . . . really?”

“And all of our names begin with 'M.' The world would not lose much in the way of creativity, were the Madsens to die out.” 

She snorts, but after a moment's pause, says, “You're good for other stuff. Worth keeping around – I mean you in particular. No offense to your family, I'm sure they're great, but I don't know them, I only know you. So you're one of a litter, that doesn't mean there's not stuff that's just . . . you.”

Mikkel glances sideways at her again, but she's not looking at him. Her soup, it seems, has just become fascinating.

“I'm not opposed to the idea of children of my own,” he says slowly, feeling a bit like he's waded out past the shallows without realizing it, and is in sudden danger of going under. 

“Good,” Sigrun answers, in a tone far too casual to actually be so.

Had she guided the conversation deliberately to this point? He doesn't think she could have, and yet here they are. Is it then possible, conversely, that he's reading far too much into the exchange? He doesn't believe that either. 

“There enough of this sludge for seconds?” 

. . or maybe it's just misplaced concern for his self-esteem. He can't think of another reason why anyone would eat more of his cooking than absolutely necessary for sustenance. He's still not sure why he was assigned to cooking duty, but he's done work for which he had even less aptitude before. 

***

She tells him he's “good at muscles.” She is not _that_ inept with words, not usually.

There can be few things in the world as absurd as Sigrun flustered on his behalf. 

It's not at all the sort of thing he generally finds attractive; he was quite happy to leave the bumbling awkwardness of youthful infatuation behind (though watching his younger siblings stumble through it is endlessly amusing). And yet it's endearing, and not in a sisterly way. He has no doubt that she could gut him without breaking a sweat and yet, here, he perhaps has the upper hand. 

That impression lasts through the remainder of the day; a whole seven hours of smug confidence. Lalli is scouting out Odense, the rest of the crew are settling in for the evening, and Mikkel is making himself comfortable on the passenger bench for a bit of reading before bed. It has been a good, productive day. That's when Sigrun pads in through the door, plops herself down on the far end of the bench, and drops her bare feet into his lap. 

“You do feet, too?” she asks. 

Her feet are long and slender and very pale – rarely out of boots, he'd guess. Mikkel sets his sheaf of transcribed pages aside. 

“Gods, you're the best,” Sigrun says, as he presses a thumb carefully into the hollow just below the ball of her foot; they're such sensitive things, feet, even on someone like her. That must be to her liking; she's leaning back with eyes closed and a contented smile on her face. “I'll return the favor eventually, promise, just not now, 'cause then you'd have to stop.” 

He can't help but imagine this sort of unabashed admiration in a more intimate context. Or her voice over his shoulder and the strength of her hands applied to his own stiff back at the end of the day. The two thoughts meld into something achingly appealing, if very unlikely. Offhand comments about keeping him aside, there's still been no labeling of this as . . . anything. 

“You don't have a wife, do you?”

It is disconcertingly as if she's read his thoughts. His pulse jumps; he is far too old for that, but it doesn't seem to care. “No.” 

“Girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“I have no significant other of any kind.” 

“Good. Me either. Come back with me to Dalsnes.” His hands still and he turns; her eyes are open now, and challenging. Her feet shift in his lap, and then she draws them back. 

_That is not how it works,_ a part of him wants to protest. _You have skipped at least a dozen steps._

She is trying so hard to look like she doesn't care how he answers, but there are her bare toes digging into the cracked leather. She seems, abruptly, so very innocent – not sheltered or naive, but fundamentally honest and truly good. He admires it and craves it and, ridiculous as it may be, wants to protect it. 

He wants her in all sorts of ways - not least being right now, right there, on that decrepit bench that would likely creak like mad. That's not happening. 

He's taking too long to answer, and she draws in a breath. “We could use -”

“What would I -”

They both stop. 

It doesn't really matter what he'd do there, does it? He'd find something, and then find something else, just as he's always done. 

“Alright,” he says. 

“Yeah?” She grins, tucks her feet under her, goes up on her knees. 

“Yes.” 

“Awesome.” She's smiling like it's never occurred to her once in her life to try to look less eager than she feels. Can it actually be so easy? 

“I want to be sure I'm not misunder -”

But she's lunged across the cabin and her lips are on his, so, oh. Well. He can feel her still smiling, and she's crawling into his lap, knees going to either side of his hips. He puts one arm around her, the other hand cupping the base of her skull, and discovers that his fingers catching in her hair makes her hum and rock. 

She draws back a few inches, enough for him to see her flushed cheeks, her dilated eyes. “That clear enough for you?”

“Yes, I think so.” 

“Good.” Then she's extricating herself from his grasp, which is likely wise – they really can't do this now, the rest of the crew one not-very-soundproof door away. He curves a palm around her jaw as she draws back, and she pauses, turning into it. For a moment they hover there, like that. 

Sigrun sighs, and retreats the rest of the way across the bench. “Right, well, big day tomorrow. Ought to get some sleep.” And she's gone.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still following canon for now - though with this chapter I will have caught up with canon, meaning things are either going to get very slow or go speculative AU at some point in the near future. 
> 
> I've skipped over several canonical chapters mostly because I don't think I have anything to add. Also those chapters were sad. So. Here we are, with a very short scene picking up from page 841.
> 
> ***

When Mikkel wakes to find Sigrun's sleeping bag empty, there is a moment wherein he is certain that she is dead. He misjudged the depth of her despair, only imagined that she seemed to rally, and now she has wandered off into the snow and the dark and he will never see her again. There will be no body – there never it is, it seems, just a long string of people who aren't anymore, vanished while he wasn't there. 

He had, perhaps, had the vague idea that coming back here, _seeing_ Kastrup -

\- and that is when he notices the silhouette of her outside the tent, not wandered off after all, but pulling her pants back up.

He exhales; she slips back inside on a wash of frigid air. Reynir frowns and shifts in his sleep, but doesn't wake. Sigrun's eyes meet Mikkel's very briefly – guiltily, he thinks, before she turns away and acts as if it requires concentration for her to crawl into her sleeping bag quietly and without jostling Reynir. 

It does nothing to help the fine tremor in his folded hands or the queasy feeling of ebbing adrenaline in his gut, that caught-out look of hers. Had she been thinking about it, again? 

Of course she had; he's no psychologist, and doesn't imagine even the most skilled professional would be able to cure that sort of trauma with a single rousing lecture. 

He wants to shake her again or, better yet, throw her over his shoulder and march straight to the pick-up point without stopping. 

Then again, that would put them beside a body of water, and that – they haven't done very well with bodies of water, have they? He doesn't want to think of that. One breakdown at a time, and it's not likely to be his turn for a while. 

Sigrun is once more cocooned in her sleeping bag, still and quiet and radiating unease. He wishes Reynir weren't between them. 

“Nobody likes a quitter,” she says quietly. 

Ah. “How fortunate, then, that you didn't quit.”

“Oh come on,” she retorts, still softly, her voice disturbingly flat. “I thought we'd been over this I'm-not-an-idiot thing. This isn't exactly what you signed on for.”

“I don't recall signing on for anything,” Mikkel says. 

It gets her to turn her head to look at him, at least, and he can tell himself that's why he said it. Not because he's angry. There's really no point in being angry at someone in her state; she can't help but be self-absorbed, with everything she believed about herself falling down around her ears. Thus, he is not angry. He chooses not to be angry. 

It is not anger that keeps him from clarifying that statement until she's looked away again and said, “Fine,” in that same dead voice. 

But it curdles in his throat, the way spite will do.

“Sigrun. We've never properly discussed -”

“I said fine, okay?” Her voice is a little louder than it ought to be, if they want to keep this conversation private, and thick around the edges. “Forget it.”

“No,” Mikkel says – too sharply, damn it. Perhaps they could just wake Reynir and tell him to go stand outside for a few minutes? “I didn't 'sign on' in the sense that I don't consider being with you a contractual obligation, something to be reconsidered if the original terms -”

“You can be a real ass sometimes, you know that?” 

Reynir frowns, rolls to his side, and mutters something into the sweater that is serving as his pillow. 

“It has been pointed out to me, yes,” Mikkel says, far more softly. “It's possible I'm somewhat angry.”

“With me. For quitting.” 

“Yes,” he concedes. 

“Great, was there a point to drawing this out?”

“If you no longer want me, I'll accept that,” Mikkel says. “If you think I no longer want you, then you _are_ an idiot.” 

She's silent for longer than he'd like, and it occurs to him that maybe he's pushed too far. Maybe she has reconsidered their plans – can it really be called a relationship? - in earnest, and not because she's trying to preempt rejection. There have been very few moments of affection since – well, since. And quite a lot of harsh words. It's possible that her self-image isn't the only thing that hasn't weathered this trial very well. 

It had been impetuous and ill-considered to begin with, really. 

But what she says is, “Why?” 

There is a great and echoing void in that single syllable, and the first response that springs to mind is, _because I want you to never sound like that again._

The second is, _did you really think I was in love with your war stories, and not you?_

“You are a truly _good_ person, one of the best I've ever known,” he says. “Nothing that has happened in the past day or the past two weeks has changed that impression, and I can't imagine what ever would.”

There is another very long, very heavy pause. 

Then, “Oh.” 

And a moment later, “I think we'd have a really awesome life, and I still really want that even if I don't deserve it anymore.” 

It's on the tip of his tongue to say something philosophical and clever – something about life not having anything to do with what one deserves – but he bites it back. He doesn't need to prove to her how wise and insightful he is right now. 

“I feel like shit for still wanting it,” she adds. “Emil and Lalli – damn it,” she cuts off, her voice cracking. “But I do anyway.”

“So do I,” Mikkel says. “And I hate that you are all the way over there.”

That gets him a watery snort. “Yeah.”

“Tomorrow we are changing this arrangement.”

“No we're not, helpless babies go in the middle.”

“Must you be logical? Indulge me the fantasy.” 

“Of me getting your jacket-pillow all snotty?” 

“Yes.”

“You need better fantasies.” 

He considers the appropriateness of it, but – oh, the hell with it. “I have a few.”

That earns him a pause, then a stifled huff of a laugh. Then, “Ugh. I hate this mission and I hate my stupid nose that's running now and I am really, really thirsty but my feet just got warm.” 

“That,” Mikkel says, sitting up, “I can fix.” 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And wheeeeee, AU we go! I have no patience.

***

“What's he saying?” 

Mikkel considers, very seriously considers, the wisdom of passing on Reynir's actual message. He can acknowledge that, in light of recent events, his own worldview may require some revision, but this – this remains a bridge too far, and Sigrun's mental state is so very fragile. 

There's no way she's missed that Reynir is very, very excited about something, though. 

“He had a dream that has lead him to believe Lalli is still alive.” 

Sigrun's head turns and her eyes go sharp as a bird of prey, focused on Reynir, who quails somewhat at the attention. “He saw Lalli?”

“Er, no,” Mikkel says. “He apparently saw Lalli's 'dream-space,' and it was unchanged.” 

“Well what's that mean?” Sigrun demands. 

“ -and I wasn't sure what that meant, so I had to go ask Onni, which was really awkward because he'd actually told me not to come back, and I had more terrible news, maybe, but maybe not, so -”

Sigrun may not be able to understand more than a word or two of Icelandic, but her eyes still narrow at all the excited babble. “Look, kid, we don't need the technical details, just give me the bottom line.” 

“ - and shoved me out, and I fell in the water which I didn't even know could happen, I didn't think it was that deep, and there are _things_ in the water, really bad things! But then I guess he felt bad because he came and fished me out and did something to make the things go away, which was really pretty cool -” 

“I believe we're nearing an explanation of that,” Mikkel offers Sigrun. 

“Oh for the love of –“ She closes the distance between herself and Reynir, whose words taper off at her approach, even before she slaps her hand over his mouth

“Take a breath, kid.” 

Mikkel is on the verge of pointing out that Reynir hasn't suddenly learned Norwegian, but Sigrun is demonstrating, nostrils flaring and shoulders lifting, and Reynir seems to be following, filling his narrow chest. 

“Good job – now, when I take my hand away, I want you to use the fewest, smallest words you've got to tell me only the important bits. Go ahead and think a minute on it if you need to.” 

Mikkel relays this; Sigrun takes her hand off his mouth. Reynir, unsurprisingly, does not think a minute. 

“Onni says that if Lalli's dream-marsh-place still looks good that means he's still alive, probably, just not sleeping.” 

Mikkel translates, trying not to sound too doubtful of the possibility that Reynir has consulted with the elder Hotakainen – the one in a coma in Sweden. 

“Probably?” Sigrun asks. “Why probably? What's the other possibility?”

“Um,” Reynir says, when Mikkel has conveyed her question. “His soul could have gotten lost and he could be dying. But really probably not!”

Mikkel winces – of all the ideas to put in Sigrun's head.

“What'd he say?” 

Mikkel tells her. Her shoulders tense in a way he's come to associate with pain. 

“Okay. So, if I've got this straight – Lalli could be alive and fine, or his body could be laying somewhere dying while his soul turns into one of these things that's been following us?” 

“I believe that's a fair summary, yes,” Mikkel says wearily. 

“Do you know _where_ he is – physically, I mean?”

“Um. I probably should have asked about that,” Reynir answers Mikkel's translation.

“That was a no, wasn't it?” Sigrun asks him.

“It was,” Mikkel confirms. 

Her expression is grim and hunted, and she says nothing for a long moment. “Then we keep going. If he's alive, he'll be heading for the pickup. If he's not, there's nothing we can do for him.”

Mikkel sags in relief, and translates. 

Reynir looks like a kicked dog. “But -”

“And tell him -” She has to pause and suck in a breath. “Tell him next time he talks to the cousin – brother – the Hotakainen I didn't get killed yet. Tell him to say I'm sorry.” And she stalks off to begin packing their gear. 

*** 

Before they decamp, Mikkel examines Sigrun's arm. The wounds remain a virulent red at the edges, but they're oozing less, what they're oozing is a slightly less sickening color, and he thinks her arm overall may be a bit less swollen. It's still very hot to the touch, as he cleans it. It's not the progress he'd hope for, but at least she's not worse. 

She needs intravenous antibiotics, and proper sanitation, and rest. The outpost they're headed for ought to be able to provide at least two out of those three, and the quarantine ship will certainly have the third. If they can keep to their present pace, they're no more than two days out; one more night sleeping rough, a few more inadequate meals, and then they'll have all the luxury an abandoned barracks can afford. 

“So what's the diagnosis?” Sigrun asks. “Will it keep two more days?”

“Prognosis,” he says. They will get there, they will get on that ship, and she will be well. He wraps her arm in a completely inadequate bandage – sterile supplies have to be conserved – and refuses to consider any other possibility. 

“Huh?”

“A diagnosis is a determination of the nature of an illness,” he says. “If you're asking about the likelihood of recovery, that is a prognosis. And yes.” 

“Whatever - what I'm asking is, am I going home with the same number of limbs I brought with me?” 

“I believe so.”

“Well, at least these -” She holds out her hand, wiggles her fingers, “- are still the right color, so that's a good sign." She lets her hand drop. "Are we done here, doc?"  


"We are," he tells her - and then, purely on impulse, takes up her hand and kisses the knuckles. This earns him an incredulous tilt of brow and quirk of lips, at which he shrugs. Her expression softens into something wryly amused; she pats his knee as she stands.

It's only a moment of distraction, but Mikkel counts it as an accomplishment. 

***

He's still thinking on distraction, some miles down the road, when he says, “You know, Reynir can't understand a word of Danish, or Norwegian.”

Reynir is walking out ahead of them where Mikkel can keep a close eye on him, lest he get any further ideas about self-sacrifice. Sigrun is sitting atop the wheelbarrow, knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped around them. She's been alternating through the morning – walking as long as she can before she starts staggering like a drunk, then riding as long as she can before her teeth start chattering. For the moment, with Kitty curled up in the bend of her lap, she seems to be enduring the cold. 

“Uh, yeah, I'd noticed,” Sigrun says, tilting her head back to give him a confused look. 

“Meaning we may discuss whatever we wish in privacy, regardless that he will overhear.” 

“Okay? What? What's wrong?”

“Nothing of which you are not already aware,” Mikkel assures her. “I was merely thinking that I could, for example, tell you there are bound to be officers' quarters in the outpost where we are headed – private rooms with full-sized beds – without having to involve anyone else in that conversation.” 

She gives up her upside-down perspective and twists around to stare at him, at that. He keeps his expression entirely neutral. 

“No way,” Sigrun says. 

“Certainly – does the Norwegian military not afford -”

“No _way_ do you want to pass the time by talking dirty.”

“You did question the caliber of my imagination,” he points out. “I ought to be allowed to defend my honor.” 

“Oh yeah?” She's almost smiling – just a hint of it, around her eyes, at the corners of her lips. It looks strained and guilty and like she understands exactly what he's doing, but it's there regardless. “Alright, big guy, what've you got in mind for those beds?”

“Hrmm. Showers before beds, I think – it's likely there will still be fuel for the generators, so we should have hot water.”

“You want to get me all hot and wet, huh?” 

“For a start.”

***

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be smut; please skip if that offends you, or if you're underage.  
> ***

There is indeed fuel for the generators, one of which even obliges them in returning to rattling, grinding functionality, and someone had thought to winterize the plumbing. Mikkel has to admire the optimism, not least because it means he hadn't lied in promising hot showers.

The structure itself has been colonized outside by several species of shore-dwelling bird, and it is apparently the nesting season; the droppings alone have become an addition to the architecture. The birds are loud, odoriferous, and none too pleased to see them, but a good sign regardless. Inside it smells badly of mold and rat urine, but the vermin they see – scattering at their approach in distressing numbers, as they explore – all look healthy.

“They out-bred the Rash,” Mikkel observes, unable to keep from feeling some admiration.

“Ew,” says Reynir. Kitty's is wide-eyed and meeping plaintively in his hold, her tail thrashing in excitement; they'll have to keep her close, Mikkel thinks, or she's likely to find the tables turned on her by dint of sheer numbers.

“Right, there goes sleeping in a bed,” Sigrun says, and sighs. “Every mattress in this place has got to be a rat's mead hall.”

“ _Ew,”_ Reynir repeats.

“Think there's any food left?” Sigrun asks. “Cans, bottled stuff?”

“Here's hoping,” Mikkel answers, while thinking that some of the rodents he just saw looked more than large enough to chew through a can.

“Gets you thinking, though,” Sigrun says, head tilted. “I mean, you're never really going to get rid of rats, so – think we ought to catch a few? Bring them back to breed with the locals? If they can do this good a job of keeping a place Rash-free -”

“Ew, ew, _ew,_ ” Reynir moans.

***

There are jars of pickled herring, and beets, and bottled beer. It's practically a feast.

***

The medical supplies are a disappointment, but one Mikkel is expecting by the time he gets to them – the gauze and cotton have been thoroughly raided. Boiling the bandages they have one more time it is, then. There are, however, intact bottles of antiseptic – they're expired, and he uses one up disinfecting the exterior of another before he deems it safe to be opened, but it's something.

He takes one look at the yellowed packaging of the IV catheters and the expired bottles of intravenous antibiotic with their cracked rubber stoppers, and decides it's not worth the risk. The ship should be no more than a few days out, and Sigrun is holding her own on her present course of antibiotics, if not improving as he'd like – better that than giving her sepsis.

***

They surprise a sluggish, unimpressed snake who has taken over what was likely some high-ranking officer's desk, catch a glimpse of a stoat darting across a hallway, and discover what the rats have been eating since the military rations ran out in one of the closets (some sort of beetle; he doesn't get a very good look at them, as once Sigrun has determined that the seething mass is in fact _not_ a troll nest, they close the door rather quickly.)

“Why is everything gross?” Reynir whines.

***

“That was the _awesomest_ ,” Sigrun says, licking her fingers. “I've never seen one that big! These rats have the _life._ ”

“We're fortunate they were still in hibernation,” Mikkel says, but mildly, eating his own piece of honeycomb in more modest bites.

“It was a _wall of bees_ ,” Reynir protests in a vaguely dazed way, though he hadn't refused the honey.

“What is he complaining about now?” Sigrun asks, scowling; she's regaining her usual energy in a way that Mikkel thinks is only partially to do with the food. For all that it reeks and crawls and squelches underfoot, there is something heartening about the _life_ in this place.

Mikkel translates Reynir's complaint, and Sigrun's response is, “It was the most best biggest wall of bees _ever!_ ”

“Bee stings _have_ been theorized to boost the immune system.”

“See, kid? These're medical treatment! Hey, you think I should stick my arm back in there, get a few more?”

“No.”

***

Once a few hours have passed, Mikkel tests the water. The showerhead sputters and spits and then produces a gush of foul-smelling brown liquid.

“Give it a moment,” he says, at the disappointed look on Reynir's face, before moving on to the next showerhead, and the next after that. The curtains that had divided the space into stalls hang in molding tatters, but the room itself is otherwise the cleanest they've yet found, and there's another like it across the hall – originally men's and women's. There isn't much to interest a rat in a big open space covered in tile, he supposes.

The first shower is now spraying a steady stream, and the water is fading from brown to a yellow-green tinge. Sigrun is watching it with the same intensity and longing that Kitty has been directing at the skritching noises in the walls.

It takes another minute or so, but then a thin tendril of steam rises from the ever-clearer water. Sigrun sticks her hand into the stream, and breaks into a wide grin. “Aw, _yes._ ”

“So, um.” Reynir is now mirroring her hungry expression; the room as a whole is warming. “Are we taking turns, or . . ?”

“I don't see why not,” Mikkel allows, and passes the question on to Sigrun, who snorts.

“Yeah, we can give the kid some privacy – we're going to want some. Tell him to wash that hair of his before the rats move in.”

***

“Is it weird that this place is cheering me up?” Sigrun asks, while Reynir takes a predictably long time and they set up camp in the other shower room. Mikkel feels a renewed pang of disappointment over the lost prospect of real beds as he spreads their sleeping bags on the cold tile, but if that's the trade-off for the improvement of her mental state, he can't complain.

“I don't think so, no,” he says.

“Kid's not wrong that it's kinda gross here,” she allows. “But I'll take gross and rat-infested over gross _ling_ infested, you know? I mean, that's pretty awesome, isn't it? These rats beat the Rash. Hail the mighty rat.” She raises a fist in a brief salute.

“Hail the mighty rat,” Mikkel agrees.

***

“Oh, you're both going to – OH. Oh. Okay. I'll – be here.”

***

Sigrun is shucking clothes before the door is halfway closed behind them. Mikkel sits on the bench by the door to remove his boots; Sigrun realizes she still has hers on only once she's down to just a bra and a bandage above the waist. She plops down next to him.

“Sure, laugh it up,” she grumbles.

“Was I laughing?”

“Your face was doing that not-laughing thing that means you're laughing, just – not.”

“Ah,” he says, and lets himself crack a smile. He gets an elbow in the side for his trouble.

Off come her boots, socks, pants, all without ceremony, but she makes sure he's looking before she unhooks her bra. He pauses in his own disrobing to give that event the attention it deserves. She has peach-pink nipples, slightly upturned, and the soft droop of her breasts over the curve of solid muscle beneath them is desperately enticing. She's as pale here as her feet are, a map of blue veins visible beneath her skin.

“Like?” she asks, with a look on her face that says she knows she needn't.

“Very much,” Mikkel says, and stands. She gives a pleased hum and drapes her arms loosely across his shoulders while he cups a breast in one hand, feels the nipple tighten against his palm. Her head is cocked, lips tilted, one brow up. He leans in to kiss the place where her neck meets her shoulder.

“Alright,” she says, drawing her hands back over his shoulders to his chest, nails dragging deliciously over his skin before she gives him a soft push back. “You still have your pants on. Fix that.”

“We should – your arm,” he says, and grimaces at how coherent that wasn't. “Let me take the bandage off, a thorough wash will do it good.”

“Yeah, good thought, let's get on with the getting less gross. It'll be nice to not stink.”

“Indeed.”

“You'll still need your pants off for that.” And by way of encouragement, or perhaps example, she takes that opportunity to remove her underwear. A generous fluff of saffron curls tapers off into a dusting of hair down the tops of her thighs, and he wants his fingers in that, but, his own pants. Off. Yes. She's smirking at him again, as she picks at the tape of her bandage.

“Let me, we need to conserve that.” He's quite proud of himself for maintaining that much thought.

“Okay, doc. Not-a-doc. Nice,” she says appreciatively, when he's managed to extract himself from both pant legs. The aspect of his anatomy that she's openly admiring would very much like for him to do something other than unwind the bandage from her arm, but he is a rational being. They really ought to have taken care of her arm _first._

While he's unwinding one of their last, precious bits of gauze, she's balancing on one foot and running the other up his calf, curling her toenails in to scratch through the hair – it's terribly sensitive, having been confined so long in socks and boots.

“You'll fall,” he admonishes, but without much feeling.

“You're holding onto my arm, you'll catch me.”

“I would rather not be holding up your full weight by your wounded, infected arm.”

“It is pretty gross, isn't it? Stinks worse than the rest of me.” Her toes have not ceased. It is incredibly tempting to close the couple inches between their bodies, rather than stepping away to set the gauze carefully aside.

“You didn't happen to find condoms around here, did you?”

He'd searched, but, “Unfortunately, no.” There had been some in with the medical supplies back at the tank, but he hadn't counted them among the essential supplies to be carried out. That was, obviously, a horrid mistake. “We will have to exercise some restraint.”

She looks about as happy about that as he is. “You could pull out?”

“That . . might not be wise,” he admits, very reluctantly. “It's been a while.”

“Ugh, yeah, it has been a _long_ winter,” she says; then, at his expression, “Longer than that?”

“Somewhat.”

“Are we talking months, years . . ?”

“A little over a – no, actually, it's closer to two years.”

“Damn. Sorry I'm not in better shape to break your dry spell.”

“I see nothing wrong with the shape you're in,” Mikkel says.

“Oh, you know what I mean.” Sigrun waves her wounded arm around in a way he wishes she wouldn't, but she looks pleased none the less. “C'mon, soap before sex, we can figure out the details while we're de-grossing.”

What he figures out – once he's done basking in the hot water, which is enough to make him moan all by itself – is that Sigrun talks as much during sex as any other time, and has presumably never even heard of the concept of modesty. Which, really, he already knew. He had perhaps underestimated the implications.

They do wash off – she's nearly as happy to have his hands in her hair, massaging her scalp, as she is to get them between her legs – but it's in the course of her conducting a thorough and enthusiastically narrated survey of his person. Some time between the start of the mission and now, she seems to have changed her mind and decided she entirely approves of his size. She hums hungry-eyed appreciation of his shoulders, spreads her hands wide across his thighs, and is vocally impressed with all of him - some parts in far more frank and measuring detail than he's accustomed to. It's a bit overwhelming, more than a bit comical at times, and disturbingly reminiscent of how one inspects a horse for sale - but if it were smoother, more practiced, he'd be rolling his eyes and probably losing interest in the proceedings. As it is, she is nothing if not sincere, and he can't say he minds.

She is also the only woman he's ever been with who's wriggled one of her own fingers inside herself alongside his to show him _here, like – mmm, yeah, that._

It is so very _Sigrun_ of her, and he holds her tight to his chest, lips on the back of her neck, while he makes good use of his lesson.

Another very Sigrun thing: she orgasms easily, and expects more than one. He is entirely happy to oblige.

They end on the floor, the now luke-warm water still raining down on them. His shoulders are against the wall, and she is astride him with her ankles crossed behind his back. His hands clutch her hips and crush her tight against him. She has no leverage this way; it's left to him - _oh yeah, lemme feel those muscles, show me what you've got_ – to push and pull their bodies together. It's more passive than he would have ever expected her to be, but she seems to really, really enjoy demonstrations of strength, and he enjoys her enjoyment, so it works out. Her arms are limp around his shoulders, her forehead against his, her eyes closed, and a litany of profane nonsense is falling from her lips between gasps and pants.

He wants inside her desperately, but for a stop-gap measure it feels amazing, _is_ amazing, _she_ is amazing. They will, he hopes, have plenty of time in future to do this in a thousand variations – and that thought sparks down his spine and finishes him.

_***_

Reynir is pretending to sleep when they emerge, and giving himself away by being the color of a tomato. Kitty has found a beetle to chew on.

“We weren't _that_ loud,” Sigrun protests.

“I didn't think so,” Mikkel tells her; it isn't a lie. _They_ weren't. She was.

“Oh well, he'll get over it.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read any of the prior chapters more than once (an author can dream, right?), you may have noticed that I've been editing as I go along even after I've posted. Sorry if that's annoying, but it's likely to continue. But anyway - last chapter got edited more than usual, you should re-read it, it's better now.  
> There's some mild smut in this one - nothing terribly descriptive.  
> ***

There is, of course, a radio. Mikkel can't get anything out of it besides screaming and static. No one mentions who could likely have gotten it working, but the room goes thick with the unsaying of it, and they give up probably quicker than they should.

What would there be to say if they got through? Nothing that wouldn't be better said in person.

***

There is a tower that served as lookout and lighthouse, and they make their way up it. They can't see any ships, even through the mounted telescope, but that's to be expected. Their scheduled rescue is still several days out.

They can, however, see that a flock of geese has taken up residence on the shore.

“Man, I wish I could bag us one of those for dinner,” Sigrun says, with all the wistful drama of one who hasn't eaten properly in months and can see their dinner flapping and honking just out of reach. Mikkel grimaces in agreement; he can almost taste it.

“What's she saying?” Reynir asks anxiously.

“Only that she's craving goose,” Mikkel assures him, and at Reynir's ensuing confusion – they haven't given him a turn with the telescope yet – nods in the direction of the window. “There's a flock down there.”

“So . . couldn't we shoot one?” Reynir asks.

“What's he asking?”

Mikkel resists, with difficulty, the temptation to make up something far more amusing than Reynir's actual question. He will be very glad when they're back among people who can speak to one another without his assistance.

“He wants to know why we can't take one.”

Sigrun sighs, and turns from the telescope to give Reynir a pitying look. “Sorry, freckles, it'd be a waste of bullets to try – the only good vantage point we've got is up here, and if I shoot from here, by the time I get down there our dinner will be halfway out to sea.”

Mikkel relays this; Reynir asks, “So, one of us could wait on the beach?”

Sigrun's response to that is to ask Mikkel, “You think you could wait on the beach, not scare off the whole flock, and climb out over those rocks in time to retrieve our dinner before the waves do?” It is not a serious question, though there's the barest edge of hope in her face.

“Likely not.”

“Didn't think so. Trust me, kid, I'm drooling at the thought too, but I'd have to be in two places at once, and even I can't manage that.”

“You and me could do it!” Reynir offers.

“Nope,” Sigrun says, before Mikkel can even tell her what he's said – she may not speak Icelandic, but she's apparently become fluent in Reynir. “No way am I sending a not-immune, unarmed civilian out there.” Mikkel passes this on, though Reynir's likely gathered the gist of it on his own.

“No, I meant you could be on the beach, and I could shoot a goose!”

“What?” Sigrun demands, because Mikkel is too busy staring incredulously at Reynir to have translated; he does so, and she joins him in staring.

“You can shoot?” She sounds as doubtful as Mikkel feels. He's sure the boy means well, but this is likely another instance of his enthusiasm outpacing his ability.

. . . though Sigrun seems to believe that the runes he's drawn on every exterior door they can find are all that's keeping them alive. Still, that's a different matter than knowing how to handle a gun. Perhaps it's more intuitive; he wouldn't know.

“Yeah, sure! I mean, I don't really like hunting, I always feel bad, but -” He pauses, and looks like he feels bad; Mikkel refrains from sighing. “I'm really, really hungry, and you want goose, so . . .”

“One shot is going to spook the whole flock, _and_ all the birds with nests on the roof, which is a whole big lot of birds,” Sigrun says, but in a slow and considering way, and it's a rare thing that Sigrun considers anything and decides against a risk. “You miss, I'm covered in bird shit and we're eating ten-year-old fish again anyway.”

“I can do it, I really, really promise! Just let me try!”

Mikkel lets himself entertain some tentative hope when he sees Reynir with the rifle in his hands; he's as absurdly eager as ever, but there's both familiarity and confidence there. Sigrun watches him in a way that says she, too, is cautiously reassessing.

“Just don't shoot _me_ , kid.”

***

Half an hour later, Mikkel is once more in the shower with Sigrun, assisting her in getting a truly revolting volume of bird droppings out of her hair.

Reynir is across the hall, plucking not one goose, but two.

The exercise has made Sigrun's arm bleed again, but it is no longer hot to the touch, and the blood looks mostly clean. She's improving.

Getting her hair clean turns into just running his fingers through it, watching the way the water fans out the individual strands over his fingers. She leans back into it, rolls her neck; he takes the hint and presses his fingertips into her scalp, his thumbs working the taut muscles at the base of her skull.

“You're seriously the best at that,” Sigrun says; her own hand slides between her legs. It's riveting to watch the tensing and trembling of her whole body. She goes up on her toes, quivering, arching into her own touch. He thinks he could spend hours just watching the way her spine curls into her tailbone, or how the fingers of her free hand twitch and clutch at nothing before balling into a fist. He keeps his own hands firm and steady on her neck, then down to her shoulders, despite wanting really very badly to be following her example. He's remembering the first time he did this for her, thinking of every slight movement she'd made in her seat. She'd wanted to be doing this then. 

Sigrun sags back against him only a moment when she finishes. She turns, kisses him thoroughly, and twists out of his grasp when he tries to hold her. “Your turn,” she says, with a pat to his chest, before going to her knees. “I'm good at this.”

He never would have thought that Sigrun could be too modest, but 'good at this' - it's all he can do to keep his knees locked. 

***

“ . . you can cook. You can _cook?_ Kid, I'm tempted to court martial you for dereliction of duty for not telling anyone this before.”

“You can't court-martial a civilian, Sigrun.”

“Don't care.”

“What's she saying?”

“Thank you.” 

“ . . . that was a lot of words to be 'thank you.'”

***

But the problem with spans of safety amidst danger, or contentment despite sorrow, is that it lets the adrenaline ebb. He supposes this is how Sigrun felt on their long walk; he was less accustomed to the exercise and had more of it to do in pushing the wheelbarrow besides, but she was left with her thoughts. 

It's not a good place to be left, after what's happened. 

He tries the radio again after dinner, alone this time, but to no better result. When he returns to the room they've claimed as home Reynir is missing, though he can hear the water running across the hall – he suspects it's going to be a while before any of them stop using every available excuse to luxuriate in the heat and the steam. Kitty is flailing in apparent ecstacy in a pile of goose feathers, and Sigrun - 

\- Sigrun has tied both goose heads together, along with several of the longest feathers, and is in the process of hanging them from to the ceiling. 

“Sacrifice to Frejya,” she tells him, at his look.

“I'd gathered.” The sacrifice part, anyway, not the goddess in particular.

“Should have done it before we ate, and this ought to be hanging from a tree, but eh, better than nothing.”

He has no comment to make to this, and goes to the wheelbarrow to look for something to read – really he ought not to be touching the originals any more than necessary, but profit be damned, he needs the distraction. He picks out the sturdiest looking volume he can find without having to dig too far.

It's an art history textbook; one of the higher-value items they'd recovered. The glossy pages retain much of their original color.

Sigrun is carrying on a one-sided conversation with the set of severed goose heads – or rather, in theory, with the goddess to which she's dedicated them.

Mikkel doesn't mean to say anything; he means to read his book. To admire the art, and try to recapture the feeling of well-being he'd had just a few hours ago, before their first good meal in ages turned sour in his belly and grim reality sank back in.

He knows enough of grief to understand that this will be happening to him for some time; it's to be endured, like a bruise or a cold, and means about as much.

But despite having every intention of just waiting out the sensation, he finds himself saying, “She could have given herself the serum.”

Sigrun's ceases her prayers and tilts her head at him; she doesn't ask why he's bringing this up now, out of the blue. “Why would she have wanted to do that?”

“It would have given her time,” Mikkel says. “She might have been able to say goodbye to her brother. If nothing else, to see its action on a living human subject would have provided researchers with invaluable information, and the end would have been painless.”

“Uh, yeah, until her soul got trapped and turned into one of the ghost-things trying to kill us. Not sure what that's like, but the whole murderous rage thing makes me think not fun.”

Mikkel says nothing. It's a loud, frustrated, demanding nothing, that refuses to fit itself into useful words.

Sigrun sits down cross-legged on the floor in front of him and just watches him a long moment. “Alright,” she says, at length, as if he'd spoken. “We're gonna have this out now? I'm game if you are.”

“There's nothing to have out, is there?” he says. “I'd be a fool not to acknowledge that there are . . . forces . .” He gestures obliquely.

“Yeah, not knowing your ass from a hole in the ground sucks,” Sigrun says.

“Thank you for that pithy summation.”

“You're welcome. Hey, if it helps, I don't know any more than you do about what's after us – so far as I'd ever heard, ghosts aren't supposed to be dangerous.”

It doesn't help. “How does a chemical concoction that acts on the body have any impact whatsoever on the fate of the soul?” He means it to be rhetorical. If there is an answer, he doesn't expect Sigrun to have it.

But she says, “Why wouldn't it?” Like it's not a deep philosophical conundrum at all – not _hypothetical_ at all, not a matter bound in high-minded conjecture but a simple, practical question with a simple, practical answer.

Which, of course, it _is_. That's the thing he can't wrap his head around.

“It's that simple, to you?” He is very careful with his tone; he doesn't want to sound condescending – has no grounds on which to be so, it seems. “People have souls the same as they have noses, magic is no different from a radio transmission or electricity, gods are just the next step up from governors?”

“Not sure I'd put it like that about the gods,” Sigrun says, with a note of caution in her voice. “The rest of it, though, yeah. Pretty much.” She pauses, presses her lips together, then says, “The thing _I_ don't get is, how do you Danes and Swedes look at the world and _not_ see that? I mean, never mind the stuff I've seen mages do, how do you explain _trolls?_ ”

“It's an illness. There are other illnesses that can cause aggression. Rabies, tumors in certain regions of the brain -”

“You really think a virus can take a bunch of mostly-dead people, mash them together, grow some spare parts, and make a giant? Really?”

“It's actually never been confirmed to be viral,” Mikkel says – it's a completely inane and pedantic thing to have to say, but he can't help himself. “The scientific consensus at present is that it's something entirely unique.”

“No shit.”

Well, yes, he supposes she has a point.

“Hey.” She leans forward, elbows on knees. “It's not like you're the only guy in the world who didn't know, there's two whole countries full of people with their heads up their asses about this stuff. You've got the sense to figure out when you're wrong and learn, and that's worth a lot in my book.”

“I don't enjoy that first step,” Mikkel admits.

“Yeah, nobody does.”

“I suppose not.”

“She did the right thing. You couldn't have saved her.”

“Wasn't I the one telling you the same a few days ago?”

“Yeah, you were, which makes it my turn.”

***

 

 


End file.
